Tag: motherhood

Ciao, Summer

It has been one of the greatest summers of my motherhood.

But I am not sad to see it go.

We’ve been to all the movies. I liked Kubo and the Two Strings best with Pete’s Dragon a close second. We swam in pools, lakes, rivers and oceans. We camped and hoteled and grandma’d. Went to bed at 10 and woke up at 9. We ate a lot of ice cream.

We are fat and tan and sassy.

It was a wonderful season, but the wheel is turning and I am ready for the greatest season of all: SCHOOL.

Blessings to the teachers whose school year started weeks ago with trainings and planning and classroom setting up. I see you.

But please, do not expect to see me until at least October.

My ears are bleeding from the 13 million times they have had to process the word Mom since June 10. Or Can I have a snack? Or Can we do something fun today?

My back is aching from loading the dishwasher twelve times a day with thrice the number of drinking glasses as children in the house.

My brain is weak from trying to solve the mathematical conundrums of laundry, like the ratio of shorts to underwear (many vs. hardly any) and family word problems (If five people are going to the pool and mom asks you to pack towels for everyone, how many towels do you need? SHOW YOUR WORK.)

My heart must recover from things like this cup of yuck I found on my hutch:

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“What in the HIGH HOLY HEAVEN is that??” I thought to myself. Then I called for Gabe.
“Oh yeah” he said. “I wanted to see what would happen if I rehydrated a piece of beef jerky.”
And if that wasn’t enough, Annie ran up the stairs yelling “Is it swimming??”

Or this hide and seek playdate run amuck:

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YES, I took a picture. I’ve learned to grab my phone when someone screams.  My friend said I’m like a war photographer. But who’s going to believe this stuff without proof?

I need a moment, just a month-long moment to recharge.

And then come October 1, armed with a pumpkin spice latte and orange cranberry muffin, I’ll be ready.

No Time for Martyrs

 

Grace

Here’s why the Martyr Mom thing doesn’t work.

You know what I’m talking about right? It’s the mom on the receiving end of back talk and side eye whose only response is to wonder where her baby went? The kids have moved beyond Share, Take Turns and Be Nice, but the parenting hasn’t.

All bad. And I’m not talking about the kids. We need a moment to grieve the loss of our sweet cheeked littles who used to be easily subdued with time outs and that’s what Moms Nights Out are for.

In the face of a surly 10 year old, we cannot fold.

Like a pack of velociraptors, our preteens are testing the fences. They will remember where the weak spots are. It’s futile to wish, whine or even pray it away. God can only do so much. The rest is up to us.

Here are the two most important things I learned in the trenches while teaching other people’s children.

  1. Words are not your friend: Negotiation Moms and Talk It Out moms, I see you planting the seeds for the long game and I like it, mostly. But when you find yourself having the same conversation for the third day, hour or minute in a row, it’s time to admit that your kids have Einstein’d you. They know they just have to look like they are listening patiently, nod in the right places, apologize and maybe give a parting hug—then they can continue to do whatever they want. It doesn’t cost them a thing. Not. One. Thing. They just have to wait you out.
  1. Anger is not a consequence: It’s an emotion, not a punishment. Maybe it used to work, but pretty soon they’ll figure out that anger is a lot like words—it’s easy to harden their hearts and wait it out. To drive this point home, consider—I once listened to a 16 year old girl tell her friends that she decided to sneak out of the house to meet her boyfriend after her parents told her no because “all they’re going to do is yell at me anyway. It’s not like they’ll take prom away.” When I told her that if I ever caught my daughter sneaking out, I’d take her phone, computer AND prom, she said “I feel sorry for your kids. You’re mean.”

DAMN SKIPPY. If one of my girls ever hooks a leg over the window sill at midnight, I want her to know exactly what it will cost her.

Teach them to call your bluff at their peril. Be the mom who says “I do this because I love you” while removing the hinges from their bedroom door, flinging their cell phones out the window of a moving car, and breaking their fishing poles over a knee in front of their friends.

I did that to one of my kids earlier this summer as a result of backtalk. Said child almost broke a smile when I did it. Not because it was funny, but in recognition that my mama game is strong.

Martyr Moms, now is the time to get down from the cross where you hung yourself, and decide you are not going to spend the next ten years—or more for those who super screw it up—battling your baby.

Cooking With Grandma

Last Thursday Shea had his knee surgery so my mom has been here helping out.

She always comes with a trick up her grandma sleeve and this week, she made her famous taco salad.

A warning for my Mexican friends: Gringa. And very loose use of the word “taco”. Proceed with caution.

She cooks up a pound of ground beef and heats a mixture of refried beans and pinto beans. Then she layers Fritos—FRITOS—beans, meat, lettuce with chunky fresh tomatoes and cheese.

Top that all off with…Catalina dressing. TRUST ME. It’s delicious.

Her last morning, I made a breakfast my grandmother used to make when we were little (but not, my mom pointed out, for her and my uncle when they were little, but there’s the power of grandkids).

Hawaiian Bread French Toast.

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It’s an easy substitution—sweet and fluffy Hawaiian bread for regular. Cinnamon, vanilla, butter and syrup, with a dusting of powdered sugar over the top.

There’s not really a recipe. I just whisk eggs, milk, cinnamon and vanilla in a bowl. Then I dip the bread on both sides and cook it up on my pancake griddle until a crispy golden brown.

And—this is God’s truth—I have never looked at the nutritional information on a loaf of King’s Hawaiian Bread so I have no idea what the calorie damage is on this meal. But there’s a part of me that truly believes that if I don’t look, they aren’t real anyway.

Happy Friday!

Cupcake-pocalypse

Some kids read books the first week of summer. Some kids go to camp.

Gabriel decided he wanted to make chocolate cupcakes with strawberry butter cream frosting. From scratch.

I was ten when I made my first cake. It didn’t go well and the trend has continued my whole life. However, Shea is awesome at cakes. He made this for Kate’s shark party last year.

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So really, Gabe had a 50-50 chance to nail this thing.

I was home for the cupcake part and it went awesome. He managed my Kitchenaid like a boss and cranked out perfectly cooked dark chocolate cupcakes.

Then I left to pick Kate up from Girls Scouts camp and take her to a doctor’s appointment. He was home alone for an hour.

When I got home, the hand mixer and the mini-prep food processor were in the sink. In a bowl of water. The appliance parts. The kitchen was a mess, but Gabriel swore he’d been cleaning for 30 minutes.

Huh.

I kicked off my flip-flops and headed to the sink, where things became curiouser. The floor was slippery.

In fact, everything was slippery. I took a closer look and noticed chunks of butter, well…everywhere.

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When I pointed out the butter on the watermelon, he finally caved.

“Mom, the butter was everywhere. It was on the lights over the sink.”

What happened???

“I don’t know. The hand mixer is broken or something.”

Or.

You turned it on high? You took it out of the bowl before you turned it off?

“Mom, I thought I was going to have to take a shower!”

Where’s your shirt?

“In the laundry. But mom–”

Oh no.

“It’s ruined. It got stuck in the beaters.”

Stuck. In. The. Beaters.

“I leaned over the bowl to see what was happening and then my shirt got in there and stuck.”

I found a little pile of buttery goodness on the floor in the laundry room. It was a 3 dish towel clean up. That’s impressive.

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HOWEVER.

This is the finished product.

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So the good news is, he can bake himself some cake.

The bad news is that I’ll be cleaning butter out of nooks and crannies for the next six months.

 

 

Leave The Thighs Out of It

It’s that time of year again, mamas.

You have to decide—are you going to be the mom who sits on the sidelines, fully clothed.

Or are you going to be the mom who gets in the pool?

We had some success with this post last year. My favorite was the story of the grandmother who at age 69 hadn’t been in a pool in twenty years. But her grand-daughter came to visit and she decided she was not going down on the side lines.

She got in the pool.

Then there was one raucous afternoon at the local pool where three of us moms joined the game of sharks and minnows. Not just in the pool. Diving in the pool. A crowded pool. With lots of moms watching on the sidelines.

The kids were delighted. When we got out I said to one of the other moms “See, that was fun!” She rolled her eyes at me and said “I read your dang post.”

Lol. I’ll take it.

The pool opened two weeks ago and there have been lots of moms in the pool. It might be my imagination, but it feels like more moms than last year.

Could be the weather—it’s been early hot this year.

But I was thinking that it could be the memory of that game of sharks and minnows last summer. Right? All that screaming fun? It could be. I’m calling it progress.

Then I was forced to swim suit shop the other day because my tankini top had a structural failure. Let’s just say if you’re going to call something “DD”, you best bring your game.

In the middle of the Fred Meyer swim suit section, I saw this:

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Ladies. DO NOT THINK “Yes! Just what I need!” No, no. no.

Here’s what it looks like:

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It came in a size 8 and a size 22 and every size in between. You can see that this was not in the interest of modesty, since it had molded cups in a push-up formation.

You know what else? That swim dress is not lined. So when you and your thighs, who were just minding their own business, try to swim, that top is going to float up and show all the business.

The only thing I can figure is the people at A Shore Fit want women and their thighs a thunder to stay out of the pool, with their objectionable parts covered up and their desirable parts running over the cups.

I socked that cheeky swim suit right on its tag, in the name of women everywhere.

Do not build me a bathing suit to hide a part of me that I may want hidden in such a way THAT I CAN’T SWIM IN IT.

Do not assume I am so self-conscious about my thighs THAT I WOULD PREFER PEOPLE STARING AT MY BOSOMS.

And for the love of goodness–do not call me, or my God-given and -blessed parts, nasty names on your sales tag. THIS IS BAD BUSINESS.

Sheesh.

Happy Summer, 2016. #momsgetinthepool